In what could have making of news with showing political stunt, senior Congress leader Beni Prasad Verma called a spade a spade that the Bahujan Samaj Party has provided better law and order in the parts of the Uttar Pradesh. So, the BSP will be, he said, better ally for the Congress than the Samajwadi Party.

If a political party or an alliance fails to get magic figure of 202 seats in the 403 member house, what role both the national parties will play in government formation? The Congress, which is making strategy for 2014 Parliamentary elections, sees its loss in going with the SP. Party strategists are of view that if the party wins 80-100 seats, it will give preference BSP to the SP in the government formation.

As far as the BJP is concerned, the saffron party will forge post-poll alliance neither with the SP nor with the BSP. Earlier in 2000, the BJP had shared bitter relations with the BSP. The national parties’ move has deepened the mystery over the government formation in the state.

The Congress plan depends on the number of seats the party is going to win in the assembly polls. After the poll results, the party will decide whether to join the government or not. The Congress sources said party general secretary Rahul Gandhi and his coterie are of view that tie-up with the SP before the 2014 general elections will put a spoke in the wheels of the Congress which is trying to regain its lost ground in politically important state.

Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has already announced not to form alliance with the SP. If the party wins less number of seats it expects, the grand old party will prefer to sit in the Opposition. According to the Congress managers, the party has strived hard to snatch SP’s vote bank in this polls. In that situation, going with the SP will send a wrong message to the voters as well as party workers.

Since 1990 when the Congress had supported the SP, the former has been out of power in the state. Congress think tanks say the party’s Dalit vote bank, which had shifted to the BSP, will return to the party fold, if it decides to join hands with Mayawati.